Thread: Why is "everything", but dialating time possible in a lucid dream

Here's the thing, as I see it, about time dilation.

There is no such thing as time. There is no thing made of mass or energy that can be called "time." There is no time wave or time particle (sorry Star Trek fans). Time is simply the tool for measurement that we use to understand actual physical events like change, movement, velocity or acceleration. Unfortunately (for these purposes), that tool has been so completely embedded into our psyches that we are hard-pressed to experience reality without time on hand to help us wrap our heads around what we see. Indeed, our invention of time the tool was so complete that it has followed us into our dreams -- a dream, especially a LD, will pass in about the same amount of time as whatever time is passing in waking life. Under the rules we've created for observing reality, even dream reality, there seems no way to experience reality without using time to measure it, and apparently that yardstick of time is ruled immutably.

So, you cannot dilate time because it doesn't exist, and how can you change the dimensions of a concept that has no dimension? Also, you can't dilate time because its "length" has been perfectly fused into our psyches, giving us a nearly indomitable "sense" of time that can only be slightly effected by things like boredom or excitement. Seems a pretty tough nut to crack.

But what if, in dreams, you can possibly eliminate the nut itself? As the OP suggests, since you can do anything in the reality that is your dreams, instead of dilating time -- which might be impossible for the reasons I just said above -- why not simply ignore it? Why not just remove it from the process of how you observe and participate in the reality of your dreams?

This would be extremely difficult, because the programming is so perfectly imbedded in us to use time, but it seems that, with enough effort, you ought to be able to produce a dream that does not include time. Here's the irony in successfully doing so, though:

Erase time from your dream and suddenly your existence in the dream is eternal. You might be in your dream world "forever," but you won't know it, because eternity is no more than an endless here & now, with no time passing.

tl;dr: So, Tye, your conundrum might be more simply stated: Yes, you can do or change everything in a dream, but time, unfortunately, is not a thing, so it cannot be changed... it must instead be ignored, erased, or rather removed from your mind's toolbox for comprehending reality.

I don't think I'm being very helpful or clear here, and I'm confident that my opinion is in an extreme minority, so I think I'll stop ... just thought I'd share my thoughts, and maybe plug the thread I started about the nonexistence of time, because I think that's what really matters in a conversation like this.